


Team Rival / School Crush

by arcadevia



Series: Arcade’s Instagram Fics [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Baseball, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Coming Out, Crushes, Demisexual Keith (Voltron), Denial, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Flashbacks, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), Homophobia, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Keith (Voltron), Jealous Lance (Voltron), Jealousy, Keith (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Lance wears glasses, M/M, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Nicknames, Past Keith/OC (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Prom dates, Slow Burn, Trans Adam (Voltron), lances head is so far up his ass, lord help me with the irony here, mainly lance pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27241351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadevia/pseuds/arcadevia
Summary: And the point Lance is getting at here is that as much as a reputation with his teammate seems like just that: a teammate, made for running wild and bullying one another until their home plate becomes a shared headstone for the grave, it’s apparently not according to the whole freakin’ school now. It’s— it’s even spelled out right across the top here, an embarrassing declaration of his own internal struggle for the past six months.VOLTRON HIGH’S FAVORITE DUO: TEAM RIVALS OR SCHOOL CRUSHES?Or: With no more reason to be spiteful toward his teammate after their last high school baseball season ends, Lance deep dives his memories with the rival-turned-friend and ends up facing the long overdue crush that happened to come with it.[Advanced updates on my instagram]
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: Arcade’s Instagram Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2065515
Comments: 10
Kudos: 76





	1. Fleeting Suspicion

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter One (alternatively, parts 1-3 on [my instagram](https://www.instagram.com/arcadevia/)).

Lance and Keith go together like air freshener mist and a lighter: a complete, totally instigated disaster that manages to blaze to life from the baseball field to any classroom unfortunate enough to bear their presence.

And it’s not like they have to try, oh no, not now or even _ever_ , it seems like— at least to their classmates. Their stunts and jabs are somehow so dramatic and ridiculous they almost seem scripted— but then again, no one would willingly bring this upon themselves.

But these two... are different. Let’s get one thing straight, Lance knows very well their running streak of chaos feeds off pure spite and another kind of thrill.

He doesn’t even have to try anymore. That little squeamish, jealousy-struck, freshman Lance glaring at his high school’s rare pick of a ninth grader for the varsity baseball team —who was definitely not him— has evolved into something else.

That _something else_ being his butt sat right on the hot bench next to the not-so-little-anymore prodigy, getting water sprayed right in the face by his fed up teammate.

Keith clenches his hand around the bottle with his face scrunched in determination, and just to piss him off even more, Lance doesn’t bother knocking it out of his grip this time. He gnashes his teeth at the jet blast like a dog going to town on gushes from a backyard hose.

The water stops, and Lance is left shaking off those last drips in the same dog-like manner, meanwhile Keith tosses the bottle back in his own open duffel bag at his feet.

“Weird-ass,” Keith grunts, and Lance just can’t help grinning when he wipes his face and wrings his hands into the sleeve of Keith’s dry, dusty jersey.

“Can’t let it go to waste.” He shrugs.

And he doesn’t miss the little side eyed smirk Keith sends his way before a whistle shrieks in the distance and their team hauls over for a last call.

  
  


Lance’s favorite thing about away games, (besides glorious victory and praise at jaw-dropping plays), is the team dinner on the way back home.

Usually there’s three tables split amongst their cluster in the Mexican restaurant they come by twice annually. Shiro and Adam, aka coach and assistant coach, desperately ignoring the circumstances (and probably pretending it’s a date), James and Ryan’s little cluster of jocks and military-aspiring guys, and then Hunk, Pidge, Lance, and the pesky little jerk that always sips at _Lance’s_ horchata like he’d spent his own whole $1.75 on the drink.

Keith’s lack of social cues, or basically any kind of cue unrelated to baseball, is no longer any sort of excuse for this sticky finger behavior at Lance’s belongings. It’s been four years, he knows better, and yet the sight of Keith lips tucked back and dark lashes fluttering while he sips away is just... yeah whatever. Let’s just say Lance doesn’t have it in him to care that much anymore.

His second favorite thing about away games is the lack of any shits their bus driver gives about practically dancing in the aisles, topped off with Shiro blissfully asleep on Adam’s shoulder and the latter’s earphones blasting music.

Not that they’re actually dancing, nah, more like—

“Give it, you— _idiot face—_ “ Lance says as he struggles through wedging an arm under Keith’s as the other clamps around his middle.

Keith twists and turns, rocking them into some sort of ridiculous tap dance and it’s almost sad how dull faced most of the team is during their wrestling match. “ _No_ ,” Keith grunts. “I grabbed it so it’s mine.”

“Yeah and I _saw_ it!” Lance says.

The bus slides to a stop at another traffic light and their feet go sliding by the bumps of their cleats.

Keith continues his quest of flailing the dollar bill just beyond Lance’s reach, but then the bus starts swerving to the left and—

“WoAHH!” they stutter before flopping back in the nearest seat like a pair of light dominos.

Shiro and Adam awaken with a gust of surprise from the impact in their laps. Lance’s hold on Keith loosens a little, and yes, he is absolutely terrified, and he bets Keith wears the same dreadful expression if all that fluffed up hair wasn’t hiding it from his view.

“Boys,” Shiro mutters, unamused, and Adam sighs to his right.

In an effort to defend himself, Lance squeaks: “I found it first but he took it!” just the way a little kid would during sharing time.

Keith tilts his head back on Lance’s chest, his bangs fanning off his forehead to show his miffed frown. “You had enough time to take it.”

“But I was just—“

“That’s actually mine,” Shiro says, and he shimmies his trapped arm out to pluck the dollar from Keith’s hand. He looks back to Keith, then Lance as he tucks it back in his pocket. “Now if you two don’t want the bench to be your new home next game, I suggest you head back and take a nap.”

There’s no way he’s being seated in one of his last games, so Lance readily shoves Keith right off and back into the aisle before his teammate could even choke out a _“Yes, Coach”_.

Later, as the bus rumbles on and Lance and Keith are swathed in their hoodies with heads resting against one another, he nudges Keith’s elbow and murmurs _“You owe me one dollar and seventy-five cents.”_

And Keith tucks his head even closer to Lance’s neck with puppy-like sweetness before he replies _“No way.”_

“Worth a shot.”

They fall asleep.

  
  


As said before, their antics aren’t kept to the confines of the baseball field, as much as any teacher would wish.

Well, they at least don’t share the same classes this year, which may or may not suck since he’s gotta burn all these brain calories over making their time as seniors just as excitable as the last.

It’s the little things that count.

And by little he means like, _actually_ little. As small as the m&m’s he’s trying to press between Keith’s unwilling lips, probably since Lance pulling him into a headlock just seconds ago wasn’t the most trustworthy approach. He’d recognize that mullet anywhere, for a list of devious reasons… 

“Open your mouth.”

Keith shakes his head and folds his lips in. “Mm mm.”

“I promise it’s good,” Lance says to him, but it only earns a skeptical, squinty and arched brow look from Keith sitting in front of him on one of the stout benches in the breezeway. He can’t help but giggle at the sight.

“I promise,” he insists again but his growing smile isn’t helping at all. Keith just continues holding onto Lance’s loosening arm as he turns more amused by the second.

Lance tried his best to conceal those telltale, suspicious flutters, clearly getting worse with each passing year and especially during their dwindling baseball season.

“Okay you totally know I’m not lying now. Open up.” He taps Keith’s lips.

_SHHK!_

“No,” Keith says, but Lance already clamps his hand over the boy’s mouth and pats his chest for good measure.

_“Are those two dating?”_

Lance feels his breath shock down his throat, and just after, poor Keith with the crumbly m&m’s starts coughing up a storm into his own elbow after swallowing.

He looks over, and of all people it’s Dr. Coran and Shiro —or _Mister_ Shirogane during school hours— looking right back. Shiro only manages to laugh as he turns away.

“Should get to class,” Lance mutters, and Keith nods with a swallow.

“See you at practice,” Keith says as he sends one last smile over his shoulder. Lance chuckles.

The bell rings, Pidge walks by tsking with a camera in hand, all set for film class, and Lance subtly flips them off after passing with his hand pressed to his backpack behind him.

In the locker room, it’s a subtle routine for Lance to throw aside all of his flaunty attitude and practically stick his nose against the farthest corner just to avoid guilt from a wandering stare. He’s not a creep, or at least he’s making an effort not to be, but a minor incident in tenth grade had him shutting out all those extra echoes and focusing on his damn practice jersey. It was just a _back_ for heaven’s sake, but _whoopie_ , fifteen year-old Lance just had to have some sudden crisis of frantically thinking— _“Holy freakin’ cow those are nice muscles…”_ And apparently enjoying the sight versus being motivated by it for himself are two different things. Between gay and a body builder— or a gay body builder, like Shiro. Heh. No but actually, he is.

And it turns out Lance was not alone. Of course he wasn’t. Not only could he recognize a certain mullet, but he could also apparently recognize the same hidden panic from his varsity (that’s right, he’d finally made it) teammate that year, standing a few feet away and pointedly observing the wall like some amazing mural and not lockers decorated in markered slurs. Great.

They’d exchanged a look, something sort of clicked, and then it was like nothing ever happened. Lance actually went out of his way to flirt with even _more_ girls in hopes it would erase any sour or secretive impression Keith had at the time.

But things are different now. Lance knows the students in here, how Ryan isn’t quite his type and James can stink up the whole freakin’ place after one damn school lunch burrito, how all the others may be fine looking but their personalities dulled down all that stifled and internal tension. 

Keith is a different story, because undoubtedly, although Lance doesn’t really know what his type exactly _is_ , his teammate… could fit, perhaps.

That doesn’t stop him from pulling all the stops to be a jerk though, since it’s his mission to annoy the living hell out of this boy.

“Dude, nice farmer’s tan.” Lance chuckles as he shucks on a pair of pants. “Or should I say _burn_.” He pokes Keith’s arm, yes it is very stiff and toned, so what… 

“ _Ow!_ ” Keith jolts away. “Don’t touch it, you asshole!”

“Maybe if you put on sunscreen for once it won’t hurt, mister vampire!”

Keith rolls his eyes and tugs on his practice jersey. “Whatever, penny nipples.”

Lance gasps indignantly and lays his palms flat over his chest. “I’ll have you know my nipples are perfectly average, Kogane!”

“What the fuck are you guys doing over there?” James hollers through a laugh from the other side of the locker room.

_“Keith is—“_

_“Lance—“_

_“—being stu—!”_

_“—dumb again!”_

They glare at each other.

Later, during the start of practice, Lance makes sure to back Keith against the fence and spray as many coats of SPF over Keith’s limbs before the boy starts dramatically coughing like a toddler. He’ll survive.

And along with that, since Keith is behaving remarkably well today, Lance manages to smear proper sunscreen over his face while the other stares at him with wide grey eyes. He looks different wearing a headband, and Lance likes to joke that there’s two different Keith’s: one with a forehead and one without. It’s hilarious to him at least, but usually it earns him a punch in the gut.

Lance realizes now that suddenly, this whole _thing_ is getting concerning, because he’d almost instinctively rewarded his teammate’s patience with a kiss.


	2. Strikeout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victory hug for their last game of senior year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 (alternatively part 4 on ig). This one is super short because I think the scene fits best as it’s own chapter.

There’s not any specific, special moments Lance prizes between him and Keith during baseball above all the others. In a reluctantly sappy way, they’ve all blended together, one hand clasp into the next, and the same for high fives and thrilled hugs after winning points, so strong that the force has them stumbling back a good few feet across the dirt. But one significant thing holds true, and it’s that no matter how far across the field they are from one another, they’ll always collide first.

In the eighth inning of their last game, Keith scores a home run because of _course_ that little prodigy just never quits, and Lance is the first to drive Keith in by a clasp so strong and resounding it makes their hands sting like their crackling excitement. They’re so  _ close _ now that they’ve caught up just enough to be hopeful.

In the ninth inning, after gruesome teamwork that's left him and the rest of them with sore legs and joints, Lance pitches the ball with all his might and strikes out the third player of the opposing team. They’ve won by two points.

And anyone could guess by now—

Keith is the first to barrel across the field and scoop him up, twirling them so ridiculously it makes Lance’s eyes teary as he cheers with everyone else.

“They saw you, I  _ know _ they did,” Keith says right into his ear, all the while they’re rocked around in a collective embrace by the rest of the team. He’s talking about the scouts. Universities. Scholarships.

But right now, all Lance can afford to finally prize is—

“I’m glad you did too.”


	3. Rumor Has It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But that’s not it, which just makes this all the more strange. You’d expect Lance and Keith’s notorious streak to be _best known_ in baseball, or at least number one and zero, always at each other’s throats during drills and sometimes even games when they should be doing the exact opposite.
> 
> Yet there’s more.
> 
> [trigger warning: this chapter references irregular meal times/eating patterns in case this is a sensitive topic for readers]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3 (alternatively, parts 5-7 on ig)

As much as Lance would love to string Keith along with lunchtime torture at his table in the cafeteria, he’s well aware by now that Keith is not quite the fan of noise, nor is he very fond of any smell relating to the mush on the lunch trays.

He stays in one of the classrooms each year. Lance would know this even in ninth grade because he’d practically felt the steam coming out of his ears when walking into his fourth hour early and finding mister home-runner in his seat. And then tenth grade, when Lance would wait outside Hunk’s classroom before the bell rang and he’d see that familiar little lone wolf just over his friend’s shoulder. Eleventh grade, third hour forensics, they sat at the same table and Lance practically felt _obligated_ to ask if this kid ever even eats, to which Keith had only sent him a glare and went back to finishing, what, like— next _month’s_ homework because he was and still is such a nerd.

But between his added frustration of seeing his team rival on his trail just by means of fate, Lance grew kind of concerned because really, he never actually caught the boy even snacking on something, which Lance does in all his classes.

_“Is that… an entire box of cereal?”_

_“Mind your business, Cody.”_

_*Crunch*_

Anyway, turns out Keith was (disappointedly) not actually a vampire, which would’ve excused his horribly outdated hair and lack of munching on crackers or literally anything of the sort. He apparently only eats at home, sometimes even forgets breakfast, and it made no sense because—

“That means you don’t even eat until like, seven o’clock!” Lance had shrieked, but Keith just shrugged and continued jogging their third lap like exhaustion ceases to exist in his freakin’ world.

So Lance would force him. Alright not actually force him, he’d _coerce_ Keith, just slide over a granola bar before the lunch bell and mutter something like _“If I don’t see you start eating this I’m stealing your pants again.”_

 _“Do_ **_not—_** _“_

_“Ah ah ah!”_

Keith snatched it away, ripped it open and tore off a bite like it was beef jerky. And Lance? He left class with a little smile. Especially more often when Keith started to _expect_ the granola bar and twiddle with the edges until the bell rang and Lance could barely hear his little _“Thanks.”_

Now Lance brings him more. He packs two tupperware containers of leftovers instead of one, gives Keith the lemonade Caprisun he likes, and even leaves a little lion sticker on there from the extra sticker sheet Nadia left on the counter at their house.

Later on, Keith would turn an unforgettable shade of pink when seated at the dinner table with the McClains after a home game, right next to his equally asocial-but-also-kind-of-cool mom. Lance mentioned this was Keith’s favorite meal of theirs (he could just tell), and Krolia raised her brows curiously before asking for the recipe not long after.

Keith apparently didn’t bother packing his own lunch because he had no one to remind him of that duty, and the only time he really sees his mom is at 10pm, far after he’d head off to his room with something like a bowl of macaroni and a protein shake.

So, McClain leftovers would do, and Lance eventually taught Keith how to make some stuff himself during an abandoned study session after school. It was all enchiladas and mario kart.

Despite all of this, Keith stayed holed up in the classroom and upheld his hermit tendencies, and Lance had no problem wandering back to the cafeteria after dropping off the food. There’s things that can be helped, and things that just can’t be changed, such as Keith's hangry mood versus his lack of tolerance toward basically the entire cafeteria.

Which is why Lance finds himself utterly bewildered when Hunk nods toward the entrance and he sees Keith frantically shuffling around the place with his head bobbing around like a pigeon as he searches far and wide across the expanse of bustling students.

He lays his palm flat over the open yearbook in front of him before raising his other hand and waving it around. “Keith!” he shouts.

Keith spots him, then stalks over with his hands clenched around the straps of his backpack, all the while his bangs fall from his ponytail in cute little tufts. More and more students begin looking his way and muttering hushed words with giggles that follow, it leaves a sour taste in his mouth, whatever’s causing this kind of trouble.

“I got my yearbook!” Lance says excitedly as he tries to distract Keith from an overload of sensitivity. “Wanna sign i— _Woahh!_ Okay I guess you do…”

Keith snatches it off the table and slams it shut as he takes a seat next to Lance. More laughter starts fizzling around them like quiet bubbles in boiling water. “You can’t have this,” he says as he yanks the zipper of his backpack and stuffs the book inside.

“ _What?!_ Why?!” Lance shrieks, and then his face falls. “Oh my god don’t tell me there’s some super embarrassing picture of me and I look ugly in it…”

“You never—“ Keith starts, then looks back up at him properly. His panicked expression begins to melt into something else before he shakes himself back into reality and holds onto his backpack even tighter. “Y-Yeah, there is.” He swallows. “It’s really bad, you know I just didn’t want you to see it and get upset or anything…”

“ _Pffft_ ,” Pidge sputters before they start laughing.

They helped with the yearbook, Lance remembers as he feels heat stirring in his chest, they would know. “The heck did you do, Pidge? I said not to put the shaving cream one in there!”

March fourteenth: Pi Day. Or should he say _pie_ day, or—or _shaving cream_ day since their school would rather fill trays of that for a cheap relay race than expensive whipped cream. Let’s just say he got a mouthful of a foamy glob when his friends started goofing off, and the rest is history. Sour, raw-throated history that he chooses not to remember. Except he still feels that phantom burn like a fresh, fire-breathing dragon after swallowing a shot of mouthwash, and the photograph of him hunched over and spitting on the pavement with a pinched face has been seared into one of the cursed walls of his mind. Never again.

Except yes, again, according to Pidge’s stupid little cackling fit and Keith’s sudden yearbook phobia.

“I — _heh_ — I didn’t” —Pidge coughs— “I didn’t put it in there I promise _pffft_ …”

Lance turns to Keith and peers over the frame of his glasses with a scowl. “What’s in there, Keith…” he trails, and the boy shrinks back as his grip tightens around the zipped up backpack.

“I just told you it’s—“

“Lies! I look amazing in like, _every_ picture!” he shrieks. “No one started laughing until _you_ came in here.” He points an accusing finger toward Keith and the boy frowns.

“Oooooo…” Pidge says smugly.

“Shut up Pidge, I know it was still you,” Keith snaps.

Unfortunately, Keith has very strong arms. Well, unfortunately for _this_ case, not other cases, like admiring their muscles from afar or uhh— baseball! Right, cause like, a batter needs good arms… Heh.

He glances around the table in search for something that could unfold Keith’s little secret, easy as pie— actually? He’s not gonna be using that phrase.

Keith and Pidge continue their bickering as Lance grumpily squints through his lenses. He probably looks like an idiot, honestly, since his contacts have his more recent prescription than the older glasses he wears. God loves tossing limitations on beautiful people, huh? Now he’s left feeling like Simon from _Alvin and the Chipmunks_ while he sports a blue hoodie and dopey eyes, all thanks to dropping a contact lens down the sink this morning.

 _“I think they look good on you,”_ Keith once said to him last year, when Lance practically dragged his dead feet into their forensics class with a pout, knowing his doom of presenting his project was scheduled for _that day_. _“They bring out your eyes.”_

 _“Uh, yeah, probably because they’re the size of_ **_bowling balls_** _?!”_ Lance had shrieked and furiously stamped away that weird fluttery feeling from Keith’s compliment. Kill. The. Butterflies.

_“Heh, that’s what she said.”_

_“Will you shut up, Cody!”_

Chipmunk-eyes be damned, Lance _will_ find out the root of Keith’s embarrassment and then… and then… totally hang it over his head, yeah. Just eat it up like thanksgiving and dangle the wishbone in front of his rival’s face like _“Waa waa, now I have a picture of you with toilet paper stuck to your shoe”_ or something stupid like that.

Lance’s eyes lock onto the space in front of Hunk, where his own yearbook rests wide open and his friend has saucer-eyes to match that sense of shock Keith probably dreads so terribly. On the glossy page, he sees splotches of their familiar blue and white school colors shown in collages, the numbers one and zero hovering in the corners and between pieces of clip art.

Before anyone can stop him, Lance thrusts out his hand across the table and snatches the precious yearbook out from underneath Hunk’s blazing astonishment, regardless of the goldfish that soar with it since the container just so happens to be in his way.

“Wait— Lance!” Hunk has the mind to say when the sparks of his short circuited reaction have flickered out. Keith’s head whips to where Lance scoots away and draws the yearbook right beneath his nose like sniffing up gossip from his favorite magazine.

“Let’s see what this is all abou—“

 _“No!”_ Keith chokes out, but Lance reclines back right as the boy reaches forward, and in his cartoonish attempt at driving the other away, he flails out a leg above the table and waves his sneaker in front of any vague, Keith-like threat coming at him.

“Eat my foot, Kogane!” He knocks the sole of his shoe right at Keith’s cheek and _oof_ that’s gotta hurt…

But he doesn’t spare a moment to end the misery and let Keith off with a print on his cheek, he keeps it pressed there until further notice, for as long as they struggle, and he’s sure if it lasts long enough it’ll be the perfect opposite of pillow creases from those heavy headed, deep sleep naps. They’re wide awake, and ain’t no pillow is gonna reach Keith before Lance locks down the great big toilet paper shoe mystery.

He looks, amid struggling, and there’s no toilet papered shoes.

No. It’s… It’s him, and Keith, and—

There’s no one else.

The page adorns several snapshots of his own recognizable, (undeniably handsome) face and (glorious) body weaving through each frame with Keith’s figure to accompany it.

Their jersey numbers glare under the sun on a particularly sweltering hot day, one that makes Lance’s limbs already feel a phantom ache just by _looking_ at the picture. But not for long, because his teammate’s got the whole cooler tipped over for an onslaught of icy water. He remembers the delayed, electric shock that shot through his body when it soaked his uniform, and how he’d only snarked back how _“Very much refreshing!”_ it was to Keith, who’d doubled over the empty cooler in a fit of laughter afterward.

It’s all over this page, their jabs at one another. Keith’s bottom half hidden behind a column of lockers as Lance takes off with his practice pants flailing in his grasp; Lance’s hand sprawled over Keith’s gloating face when the boy had the ball pressed to his shoulder at third base, and the hot sensation of defeat practically seared through his jersey sleeve; Lance catching him in a headlock during a team call— a classic, if you ask him.

But that’s not it, which just makes this all the more strange. You’d expect Lance and Keith’s notorious streak to be _best known_ in baseball, or at least number one and zero, always at each other’s throats during drills and sometimes even games when they should be doing the exact opposite.

Yet there’s more.

 _“Be more expressive!” Lance whines as he anxiously peers up at their figures moving around the grainy screen. It’s his last prom and it doesn’t have to be_ **_perfect_** _, per say, but some decent pictures could do him justice before Keith’s boring faces send him to his deathbed. “Like, do what everyone else was doing.”_

_“Everyone else?” Keith says with a challenging lilt. “Fine.”_

_He wraps his arms around Lance in a sturdy embrace, already knocking over barrels of butterflies in the boy’s chest before pressing his nose to Lance’s cheek. “Ooo Lance, look at us being all mushy and gross like everyone else~” he taunts as they rock from side to side and Lance can only squirm._

_5 — 4 — 3_

_“Oh my god, stop!” he says through a laugh as he holds on for dear life and devotes an ongoing effort to keeping his eyes up, unlike someone over here._

_2 — 1_

_There’s a press to his cheek, damp and familiar and so, so dangerous for the things that’ll be reaching his addled dreams later tonight, but he doesn’t have it in him to care. He takes the joking kiss in stride—_

_SHHK!_

_—perhaps a little too much, because his doe eyes and open mouthed smile and Keith’s utterly convincing gesture speaks absolute levels of two students that look like_ **_high school sweethearts_** _._

Lance still has the standing photo booth picture in his phone case, faced inside so the moment can be kept between him and his own shy stare. He takes it out and twiddles it around sometimes when he finishes tests early, or when he lays in bed and trusts the darkness to conceal all the wandering thoughts that come from this particular memory.

But now it’s plastered on a page for hundreds of students to look at too, among more moments that just keep adding to this flustered mess like popcorn bits waiting to be snacked on during the show of Lance’s ultimate crisis this year.

_“Ow! You stabbed me too early!”_

_“That’s the point!” Keith says exasperatedly. “You would’ve flinched if I counted down.”_

_“I’m gonna bleed out and die.”_

_Keith huffs a laugh and takes Lance’s finger once enough drops make it onto the small pallet for their blood typing lab. “You’re B positive,” he says a moment later as he gently places a cotton swab on the pad of his finger._

_“Well that’s kind of boring,” Lance says._

_“Means I can donate to you, though.” Keith leans over and props his arm on the table as he fills out the paper. Then, he glances up with a smile. “Think my blood makes up for that horchata?”_

_Let’s just say, Lance is less prepared for their close proximity and the blush that comes with it than finding out he’d gotten a D on the last test. At least then he knew his studying was half-assed, but Keith over here is just… weird. And spontaneous, in a way._

_His face softens._

_SHHK!_

_“No way.”_

And the point Lance is getting at here is that as much as a reputation with his teammate seems like just _that_ : a teammate, made for running wild and bullying one another until their home plate becomes a shared headstone for the grave, it’s apparently _not_ according to the whole freakin’ school now. Especially with the photography students somehow capturing the things he’s sworn mister sandman not to tell a soul about, or better yet, build a little daydream world around— Which totally isn't a thing by the way!

But it’s spelled out right across the top here, an embarrassing declaration of his own internal struggle for the past six months.

_VOLTRON HIGH’S FAVORITE DUO: TEAM RIVALS OR SCHOOL CRUSHES?_

Lance doesn’t curse very often, but… fuck.


	4. Keith’s Stability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lance doesn’t care if the toes of his cleats are braving the edge of a cliff and Keith happens to stumble. He’ll go down with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 (or alternatively, both parts of pt 8 on ig)

_ thunk _

The heel of his sneaker hits the table after Keith promptly pushes it off his face, blatant dismay wiped across it more than the faint streak his shoe left behind.

He doesn’t have time to gauge the situation or even his own reaction before Keith is scrambling to stand up. His legs wobble in the narrow space between the bench and table like an anxious baby deer, jaw slack and shoulders moving from breaths that fill his chest and cast his gaze low from their watery weight.

Lance doesn’t see him like this very often. Glossy eyes and frantic little tics are reserved for a side of Keith that Lance has barely scratched the surface of. He never sees them raw and bare splayed out in front of him to pick apart and understand a layer so vulnerable. Instead, it’s rather like peering through a keyhole.

Or the crack of a stall door at the back of the locker room, covering his own gaping mouth at the mess of blood across the tile floor and Keith’s pinched fingers somehow doing no good to stop his nose’s downpour.

_ drip, drip, drip _

He can’t remember how everything happened. Honestly, all he knows is that he’d  _ thought _ it was just some stupid guys goofing off with each other before practice. How taunts and slurs are so easily masked as friendly ridicule at this shithole of a school— it’s well within his belief.

_ “What’s going o— oh my god, Keith, are you okay?” _ he remembers Shiro saying when he stumbled upon one of his two missing players, the other boys had taken off through the back entrance.

Lance remembers hating Keith’s guts that year in tenth grade, or at least trying to as he vied for proper attention as a worthy varsity player. But regardless of his stupid,  _ stupid _ pettiness, a knot had formed right past the roof of his mouth that had him clenching his jaw tight and staving off fretful tears.

In hindsight, Keith really doesn’t do  _ anything _ to be hated in such a harmful, striking way. At least not intentionally. When Lance had exchanged that quiet mutual look with his teammate during his whole boy crisis, he saw himself in it. Caught, afraid,  _ anxious _ . But where Lance would be less than compliant in a situation like Keith’s waterfall-ing nose, what he’d heard from the boy himself was so strained it was almost a tip toe away from a ravine of voice cracks and despair.

Keith had sheepishly wiped his nose and twitched away as their coach leaned low to seemingly examine the mess.  _ “Y-yes, Sir.” _

Keith can shrivel himself into something so small under such overwhelming circumstances sometimes.  _ Oftentimes _ . In comparison, it’s pretty unfair to crush a flower with a  _ car tire _ of all things—

But Lance doesn’t know why something precious should even be crushed at all.

“‘M gonna go,” Keith mutters in almost the exact same tense voice as he tucks his hair behind an ear and finally manages to land his foot on the other side of the seat.

The snickering from around them begins to die down, not altogether, but Lance knows his classmates aren’t all cold hearted, expecting something so dreary to happen rather than… Something nice…

And he still can’t stop that internal thrill from it all. People  _ see _ this, only a scoop of their interactions that happen to be caught on camera. God, Pidge even captured his awestruck face from two years ago when Keith helped him off the field from a sprained ankle— the moment his first impression of the boy was faltering, and inevitably going to fall apart once he realized Keith wasn’t the spiteful kind of person he’d obsessed himself over.

“Wh— Why is he— Is he upset?” Pidge asks in genuine concern as Keith weaves himself out through the crowd. “I thought he’d be angry and throw something at me, I didn’t think this was like—“

“It’s okay, Pidge,” Lance says.

He hopes his suspicions are right, and that this is less about the yearbook page and more about Keith’s ground-shaking worries during moments so vulnerable. He used to think Keith had stalked off after lost games because he was furious, probably even mad at the rest of them. Later on, he came to find out there’s far less he could know about his teammate by watching the back of his jersey and not the wobbly lips and teary eyes on the other side. Keith walks away for the sake of handling anxiety attacks on his own, away from the sound of disgruntled dirt kicks and James half heartedly picking apart their opponent’s plays just to feel better.

_ “You’re not a bad player, Keith,” _ Lance remembers telling him while they sat together in the secluded hallway of the sports building.

Keith sniffed.  _ “I know I’m not, but if other people think I am then what else is there to believe?” _

_ “Um, more like  _ **_who_ ** _ else, such as I? Don’t make me pour my heart out here, idiot.” _ He slung his leg over Keith’s and dragged his teammate over into the solace of his burnt arms and dusty uniform.

_ “Hm,”  _ Keith chuckled, then leaned into Lance’s embrace. It was better than nothing.

So with what he’s witnessed before, along with his own addled worries, Lance can only guess Keith’s reaction isn’t from dread of some stupid school reputation, it’s from bringing Lance along with it. The same way he thinks he drags the team down, the same way he’s faced the walls of the locker room countless times because clean tiles still look bloody if that’s all you think about. Things turn deprecating, his assumptions spiral for the worse, and what better way to feel some resolve than taking off altogether?

Lance doesn’t care if the toes of his cleats are braving the edge of a cliff and Keith happens to stumble. He’ll go down with him, however stupid the school gossip turns, and if Lance becomes the next hot topic between homophobes that got their panties in a twist, then that’s their problem to deal with.

“I’m gonna go too,” he tells the others and takes one last look at the page before sliding the yearbook back over to Hunk. “He’s probably headed to the nurse.”

Pidge nods with an uneasy frown, their frame brimming with guilt. “I’m sorry though, I thought it’d be some kind of gag and I’m just really—“

“I know.” He smiles. “To be honest, that would make a good phone case or something…”

“Oh my god…” Hunk groans, but he’s definitely biting back a reluctant smile. Lance just knows it.

And he’s off.

_ “Don’t assume I think you’re a terrible player or— or person. Because I don’t,” _ Lance had mumbled all that time ago, so low for the sake of his buried feelings despite how quiet and empty the rest of that hallway was. 

He’d kissed Keith’s cheek, and there were no cameras to catch it that time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 8 has just been completed on instagram!


	5. Coming Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Idiot.”
> 
> “Jerk.”
> 
> Lance scoffs. “Oh _I’m_ the jerk? No don’t you groan here, Mister _I stole sixty-five bucks of In-n-Out savings because supposedly having a crush on Lance is the worst thing ever_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⚠️ Trigger warning for this chapter: implied/referenced homophobia and harassment (flashbacks)
> 
> Chapter 5 (pt 9-11 on ig)

Keith usually goes to the nurse’s office if he’s handling anxiety during school hours, since Shiro is occupied teaching his photography classes. It’s in his plan, or something like that, Lance doesn’t quite know. All that he _is_ sure of is the fact that his teammate or buddy or whatever doesn’t get into trouble for taking a trip over there, and neither does Lance because, well, the whole staff loves him.

He remembers last year, Mister Alfor had let him eat nuggets in his office after missing lunch from a doctor’s appointment. Not that he had it in him to actually _eat_ them though, since he was so terribly high strung from the man’s daughter, Allura, sitting nearby with her gorgeous hair tied back and all-star volleyball uniform crisp and clean for the game later that day.

Lance earns approval from all over: teammates from the field, swim buddies, volleyball peeps, fellow rowdy classmates and the teachers that ended up loving him in the long run, because a day without Lance is a day without _noise_ , thank you very much.

His social butterfly tendencies have earned him titles like _prom king_ and _class clown_ , a charming mix of his best traits that surely have that little piece of his ninth grade self just swelling with pride.

And as always, on the contrary, Keith is _not_ like that. He’s an all-star too, a prodigy in the beginning who’s turned into the leader everyone knew he’d become years in advance. Even then, there’s other parts the school has seemed to hone in on. _Best smile_ , with Keith’s rare toothy grin showcased in the yearbook with an insufferably endearing smatter of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and the sharp, crooked canine that Lance has like, this weird urge to be bitten with or something. Does that make sense? He doesn’t know, it just looks pointy and the last time he jammed Keith’s cheek back like an overexcited dentist, he was well on his way to getting a few of his own teeth knocked out.

These traits are quite contradicting though. Keith’s freckles are one of his only scraps of evidence against being some weirdo vampire, but definitely meant for further inspection. _It’s for science_ , he’ll tell himself every now and then, before Keith glares at him above that blanket of specks and says _“What?”_ because the sunscreen lotion had turned to a big glob in Lance’s hand from squeezing too long during his sidetracked state.

 _“Nothing,”_ he’d say. And then— _“You’re stupid.”_

It’s all for good measure. 

“Is my…” he starts once he enters the nurse’s office. His _what?_ “Is Keith in here?”

Terry glances up at him from her computer. Her big eyes brighten underneath a wispy set of bangs at the sight of Lance, then she nods and points toward the doorway behind him before returning to her usual mumbling.

Keith lays on one of the standard, hard cushioned beds placed in the attached room. All the curtains are pushed back and he’s currently the only one around, huddled up in a dark team hoodie that Lance has noticed he tends to throw on for the sake of comfort over fine temperatures.

There’s not much he had planned after making it in here since tracking Keith down was his only motive for the time being, as if he can’t think properly without Keith at his side. (Definitely untrue, especially after almost setting his hair on fire last week, then Keith’s, then Shiro’s entire office. Long story…)

So instead, he wordlessly flops down onto the bed next to Keith’s, with his feet hanging off like some goofy cartoon character since he doesn’t know how to press the stop button on something called “growth spurts”, then shimmies onto his side to face his teammate. Keith watches him with owlish eyes through the shadow of his hood and hair.

They stare at one another.

“Idiot.”

“Jerk.”

Lance scoffs. “Oh _I’m_ the jerk? No don’t you groan here, Mister _I stole sixty-five bucks of In-n-Out savings because supposedly having a crush on Lance is the worst thing ever_.”

“I never said that,” Keith says, but Lance is only paying half attention since he notices their usual banter is picking away at the sharp edges of Keith’s tenseness. “Plus, it’s sixty dollars, not sixty-five.”

“Don’t talk to me, Keith. I’m emotional.” He rolls onto his back and dramatically flicks a hand over his forehead in feigned distress.

“Why are you here, then?”

That’s the real kicker, the whole _why_ question, the one he’s been scampering away from like a child being chased by a horrifically giant piece of broccoli in some juvenile nightmare. And definitely.. not.. one he had a few days ago…

It’s easier said than done, except in this case, in which it’s easier _thought_ than said. Admitting _it_ —telling Keith that barreling down a cliff into a pit of gay rumors isn’t so bad after all and actually takes care of half the work for him— is genuinely a broccoli nightmare in itself.

He feels caught off guard suddenly, which is why it takes a second or two of staring back at Keith after mindlessly lolling his head to the side before he could sum up the courage to respond.

“Because I…” He licks his lips and Keith remains still like timid prey. “Because I care more about you than... what the rest of the school thinks.”

And well, he’d expect Keith to look at him like a freakin’ puppy or something, anything tame enough not to shake Lance’s already thundering chest from such a lame confession. But _nooo_ , instead Keith ends up twisting his face into mild confusion, the expression he makes when Lance sprays a _generous_ amount of Axe in his cleats before practice.

“What,” he challenges.

“You _care_ about me?” Keith asks skeptically, but Lance can see that stupid little smile growing and he’s not being subtle at all.

“Shut up, you know I do,” he mutters and presses his face further into the pillow like it could spontaneously knock him out and help to avoid this situation. The little handwashing poster across the room suddenly looks so appealing, and these crinkly sheets underneath him… Just amazing.

Keith hiccups a little laugh. “Oh no I do, I just never thought you’d admit it,” he says, but the sly tone begins to taper. “Especially not now…”

“What do you mean?” Lance asks curiously as he curls back on his side.

Keith glances at his backpack on the floor, between the two beds. Unassuming, solid black, save for the baby Stitch pin Lance had got him during their Disneyland trip last year. Yeah yeah, he had some money to spare and saw the other eyeing it like a mother in the infant clothes section. Keith’s hands are like, kind of soft too, ya know, when Lance had unfolded one after swearing the gift wasn’t a piece of trash that time.

Anyway.

“Keith, I don’t— I’m not upset about that,” he says. It’s the truth, especially when he can only think of baby Stitch and Keith’s smile _—with teeth!—_ when looking at that plain, zipped up backpack, rather than the sixty dollar yearbook he made a whole show about earlier. Or his suppressed feelings on display in the unmistakable pictures inside with high resolution and vibrant color.

“Yeah but you might be later on,” Keith mumbles.

Lance scoffs. “I don’t get upset about things _later on,_ that’s stupid.”

“This morning you argued with me over a project from last year.”

 _“It was due on Monday! I remember it clearly, Keith,”_ he remembers saying to the boy when reminiscing over their great science fair project. They’d been walking past the forensics classroom during their passing period, and just through the propped open door, he’d seen this year’s array of boards leaned against the far wall in several stacks.

_“It was due Friday and I ended up being right.” Keith leveled him with a deadpan._

_“Monnndaaay,” he said, and carded his fingers through Keith’s hair in a swift movement like he could hypnotize it into the other’s mind._

_Keith’s lips curled amusedly as he met Lance’s gaze with lidded eyes. “Friday.”_

_Betrayal._

_“You know what? Don’t talk to me,” he said with a scowl._

_“It’s hard to believe you’re actually mad when your hands are still in my hair.”_

The paperwork and cited resources were actually due Friday and their _board_ was for Monday, but Lance likes being right, one hundred percent with no crumbs left behind. And while he’d usually just let up on it and drop the subject, arguing with Keith feels less hostile and more like a lame excuse for attention. Not his fault that it always works.

“And I was right. But this is different,” he finally responds.

Keith rolls his eyes, but his shoulders are tense again and he’s already chewing away at his lip while he can.

“I’m sorry though, about the pages,” he continues when tides of guilt start washing in and an inkling of self doubt gives him the idea that maybe Keith actually hates this as much as he suspected Lance would. “If I knew Pidge was gonna do it I’d stop them and— and like, I know it’s supposed to be a joke, but I also know you’re not like, _out_ to everyone…”

It was just the locker room thing. The one where Keith didn’t have a chance to decide _who_ knows and _when_ because only a few bullies and a frightened look across the room made Lance just get it.

“You know I’m gay?” Keith asked quietly, and under any other circumstances Lance would laugh and say something stupid but it’s just not worth it.

He always thought coming out would be like this big moment for everyone in the community. Doesn’t matter if it’s wholesome or heartbreaking, it’s _big_. It’s confetti and cakes and flags or shouting through angry tears or bloody noses and a baseball coach saying _“You’re not okay and that’s okay”_ after something so terrifying simply because you…

are you.

But this moment is quiet, blanketed in the muffled noise of students mingling in the commons outside the blurred window, Keith’s baited breath and Lance on the edge of being an honest friend with his own secret to share.

“In tenth grade I heard the track kids before practice that one time,” he says with his gaze sunk to the floor and that choked sensation returning from such a jittery flashback. “When they were calling you names and stuff cause you and Caleb kissed or something.”

_“Get the fuck away from him! Don’t fucking brainwash our friend you f—“_

_“I didn’t do anything!”_

Caleb transferred schools the following week, and by then, Lance figured what happened was at least real enough to cause some blistering damage. They weren’t just calling names, they were _harassing_ , and Lance didn’t have it in him to bolt out and stop everything because sometimes you just don’t wanna find out if it’s the confetti or hot tears waiting outside the closet. He’s still scared, but at least he had the choice to stay hidden away.

“Oh,” Keith says, and his slumped body is painted in mellow defeat. Lance already feels bad. “I guess a lot of people found out from that.”

“I still didn’t tell anybody. I promise.”

He reaches out his hand, pinky extended into the illuminated space between them, where light casts inside from the far window while the rest of the room is bathed in faint shadow. Even the most unnecessary (albeit genuine) antics Keith still puts up with; a promise is followed by a pinky with Lance as one is followed by a smile with Keith.

Keith reaches out his half-sleeved hand and links their pinkies. “I know, I trust you.”

Lance swallows away his anxiousness as much as he can; this isn’t exactly a moment he can slam a joke on and pretend all is well before going about his day. He’s vulnerable too, and looking at Keith while holding the same secret is like looking into a tinted reflection of things that could’ve been. It was a narrow miss, but it feels unfair to pretend he’s free of it all himself.

“I trust you too,” he says, then slips his hand into Keith’s when it begins to quiver from how absolutely nerve wracking this feels. His entire body is vibrating like his phone during ten missed calls from his mama while a few minutes away from an ass whooping. Holy hell. Here goes nothing.

“I’m bisexual.”

And— and _dammit_ , there it is. The puppy look he was talking about, where Keith’s brows peak and a glint blooms in his eyes. It’s not cartoonish as it is subtle, the boy probably doesn’t even realize it either; it’s just Keith being… Keith.

Cute, in a way.

“Yeah?” Keith says, and his freckled smile is crooked from his cheek pressed into his other hand. Lance wants to freakin’ squish his face or something— and that feels like an even more dangerous idea considering he’s um, _out_ now. Standing in little confetti pieces of Keith’s support. It feels good.

He licks his lips and nods, then gives Keith’s hand a squeeze. “Surprised?”

“Hm, I kind of figured.” Keith’s hold tightens too. “I just didn’t wanna get my hopes up.”

“Your ho—?”

_DING_

Keith glances away and out the window, where students start to pack up and scurry back to class, or take their time cruising between friend groups before their fourth hour begins. His thumb roves over Lance’s knuckles in a gentle stroke, then his hand slips away.

_DING_

“Got a test in Iverson’s today,” he mutters over the noisy crinkly sheet underneath him as he sits up and takes his bag, Lance clumsily follows suit.

“Oh, heh, yeah it’s—“

_DING_

“—actually not that hard. He probably just wants us out of here,” he says as Keith is already standing up.

“Makes sense.”

_DING_

A hand is out in front of him again. Light, smooth, palm open and inviting below his chin and the sight suddenly feels like a _way_ bigger deal than before, especially with Keith’s patient expression hovering above.

Lance takes it.

And instead of just the helpful tug he’d expected, it takes one pull and an extra step to smell a certain cologne and have his chin hooked over the other’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” Keith croaks out.

A hug from Keith without the adrenaline rush of a winning point to prompt it feels almost foreign to him. But he returns it, so fast it’s like he fears the weight within his arms will vanish if he doesn’t hold tight.

His face must be blooming three shades of an embarrassing red right now, and yet, perhaps that could just be his excuse for tucking his nose into the crook of Keith’s neck, curling himself away from the rest of the world.

“Yeah,” he says, and thinks of prom dates and freckles and _“hopes up”_ and everything Keith could’ve meant in all those moments—

And what it means when Lance thinks he wants more of it.

“Of course.”


	6. Malfunction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You hopin’ for a different reason?”
> 
>  _gksjfkdbfkendkdndkdjdfbapdjej_ , the search bar and his freakin’ _brain_ says.
> 
> Your search - **gksjfkdbfkendkdndkdjdfbapdjej** \- did not match any documents.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 6, (pt 12-15 on ig)

So like, maybe coming out to Keith actually _was_ a bigger deal than Lance had expected. And no, it’s not like Keith was bewildered and sucked in a gasp like helium at a birthday party, or vomited firecrackers or really anything that really shouted the reaction _“Holy cow, Lance is bi!”_

Yeaah _no_. It’s not outward, per say, it’s… it’s…. — _ergh_ — it’s inside. He’s out and Keith’s out and everybody’s out or whatever, okay? So that means when they’re uh, sort of…

This is going nowhere, but a prime example of how those firecrackers are obviously stuck in his own stomach and heart and mind is when he’s minding his business in the library, hunched over his chromebook keyboard with god, like, the most _awful_ posture, and suddenly right in his ear a voice says—

“Hey there.”

Lance jolts so fast he almost feels like his body glitched.

“Wh-OA _h_ there, _dios_ Keith, you mind like… giving a warning or something?” he says in a hushed voice with his hand clutching at his stuttered chest.

Keith levels him with a look, ya know, the stupid one with the skeptical arched brow that makes his piercing (cool as _hell_ but Lance will never admit) tilt with the movement. “That was your warning,” he says, and stays there for a moment, awkwardly leaned over with his hand stuffed in the pockets of slim jeans as Lance internally counts the last strands of patience he has.

He rolls his eyes, then Keith allows himself to move from the apparent signal he catches in that.

“What are you even doing here?” he asks, thoroughly avoiding this weird instinctual splash of thoughts that spew droplets of _“Wow Keith is here in the library— did he come to see me? Keith is sitting right here next to me his attention is on me right now don’t do anything weird do I look okay oh my god is he scooting closer what—“_ all across the hollow walls carrying his stupid pea brain. Well, he’s not stupid, but this sort of reaction is already growing infuriating to deal with, and it’s only been a few days since their coming out. He’s never been _this_ self conscious, and for what? For _who?_ Someone with a _mullet?_

Keith scoops up Lance’s backpack with the same eagerness of a raccoon with this week’s new bundle of garbage or something. “My last class only meets once a week, remember?” he says, then plucks the last piece of watermelon gum from _Lance’s_ pack that was in _his_ bag before unwrapping and plopping it right into his mouth.

And Lance isn’t even mad. Or he is, but he’s mad at the fact that he’s not _that_ mad because… he’s usually more mad. Make sense?

 _Five cents_ , he thinks to himself uselessly. He’s been taxing everything the boy borrows or takes ever since his stolen horchata, not like Keith actually listens anyway. It’s starting to feel like a one sided game of monopoly, but those gum pieces and hair ties —that Lance totally doesn’t buy for him— are stacking up, alright? And donating that O negative blood is not gonna come around anytime soon unless Keith proves his suspicions of planning some ~mysterious accident~ so he could just _happen_ to save Lance’s life or whatever and have his seven dollars and thirty-four cents forgiven.

No way. And no, Lance isn’t obsessed; he's just dedicated.

But aside from his mental price tabs kept on Keith, he feels his mood sink a little at the boy’s reminder because— “Oh yeah,” he says in a small voice, willing his pout to go away, although it probably won’t anytime soon. “Internship ‘n stuff.”

The thing is, Lance doesn’t really _know_ what Keith’s plans are after graduation, even though the seniors are constantly bombarded with this kind of stress all the time, confronting Keith about it is like shouting into the void. Or a lame face with sparkling eyes that make you lose your train of thought so you forget the question to begin with and wait what…

“Yeah,” Keith says, pulling Lance from his mild stupor.

But he still feels it, the twinge of bitterness at a future without this. He plans on heading to California, good ol scholarship coming in clutch thanks to baseball and the excruciating pain of honors and AP classes because really, he isn’t _actually_ dumb. It’s not like he could afford getting there without the brain torture anyway though, any kind of scholarship is a big deal when your family makes less than the ideal amount of income, and sometimes you know the neighbors aren’t just “gettin’ rid of some old clothes”, it’s really like what winter shopping would be for another family. A more average one.

It used to be embarrassing, but he grew out of that. The sound of half-sniffles down the hallway as his mom sorted through countless dead ends of available jobs is just… 

When you’re fourteen and find out the logo on your hoodie was stitched onto a hand-me-down cause your mama didn’t wanna see you sad on Christmas, you start thinking. There’s a lot more to love in those loose threads than the stiff sweaters everybody else has got on.

And sure, Keith is a troubled guy, but his house is nice, _really_ nice, at least to Lance it is. His handful of visits only encountered clean tile and non-markered walls and door hinges that don’t squeak and a bed that could fit not just one, but _two_ , maybe even two and a _half_ stupid mullet-heads in it. Lance felt like he committed a felony after waking up from an accidental nap during their study session and getting drool on Keith’s pillow. And you know what Keith did? Snapped a pic and _laughed_. Lance bets those pillow cases cost the same as his house’s rent, or he was just really paranoid about messing things up…

“Welp, still doesn’t explain why you’re here with me of all places,” Lance says in a clipped tone as he turns back to his work. The lines of words across his screen are totally muddled, though, all that his attention can latch onto from the corner of his eye is the glint in Keith’s piercing and that absolute _mess_ of shaggy hair. Is it getting longer?

“Hm,” Keith hums simply. “Just bored.”

Lance does his best at typing away, regardless of the total BS that he’s cramming into the search bar of Google, a continuous keysmash just to keep himself preoccupied from… you get it, hopefully, cause he definitely doesn’t.

“How flattering,” he finally responds, then clicks the _Enter_ key as if he actually did something there. Ugh.

“You hopin’ for a different reason?”

 _gksjfkdbfkendkdndkdjdfbapdjej_ , the search bar and his freakin’ _brain_ says.

 _Your search -_ **_gksjfkdbfkendkdndkdjdfbapdjej_ ** _\- did not match any documents._

And for some diddly dumb reason, his vocal chords decide to play friendship bracelets and tie together before he can even _think_ of choking out a response. _“Hoping”_ — pfft, who does Keith think he is? Yeah, Lance was _totally_ hoping for…

For…

_“I just didn’t wanna get my hopes up.”_

I-Is there some sort of projection in this or—

“Shut up,” he says with a side-eyed scowl, mostly to himself but Keith happens to be in front of him anyway. This library lighting better make this inexplicable blush look like some sort of sunburn or something…

And so Keith does. But if there’s one thing Lance has learned about his friend here it’s that Keith, already the reserved, quietly aloof type, manages to be annoying in several ways that aren’t necessarily vocal. Most importantly, number one:

Staring.

It’s not exactly _bad_ having Keith’s attention on him though, it’s just unsettling. Like, what’s he supposed to do now? Search up the intriguing history of ‘ _gksjfkdbfkendkdndkdjdfbapdjej’_? Which, apparently, doesn’t have one to begin with. So now Lance here is left as the captain of one hundred mini-Lance’s (or however many brain cells he has left at this point) as he scrambles for the next step of his project that needs to be completed by this weekend, kind of like that one episode of Spongebob.

This way, he looks preoccupied, _unaffected_ — oh, right, and he’ll actually be DOING WORK TO BEGIN WITH.

 _Get it together, idiot_ , he thinks with a sniff, then adjusts in his chair. But it’s _hard_ and Keith is so… _Eurghhhhhhhh_. All those mini-Lance’s are flocking to the windows of his eyes, just to spot Keith out the corner of them, tossing theories of what he’s thinking back and forth and ultimately feeding a raging fire of sudden self consciousness.

He scowls, glances Keith’s way and feigns indifference toward the waiting gaze already landed on him. Keith’s eyes are dark like this, and shadowed under the hanging roof of his thick lashes and brows. They peep above his arm from where his head rests on the table now, cushioned against the sprawled pillow of his equally dark hair and the other arm bent underneath it.

Lance gives up, just a little, and flops his open hand over Keith’s taunting eyes. “I said shut up.”

“But I’m not saying anything,” his friend mumbles lamely into the sleeve of his jacket.

He puts the pads of his two fingers over Keith’s resting eyelids just for good measure, letting the lashes tickle his skin while all the mini-Lance’s flutter around his head like cartoon birds.

This is hopeless, and very, _very_ concerning. Like, for one, he’s absolutely sure something must’ve slipped into his drink earlier. Maybe Gianna really _did_ mess with his hydro flask (yes, he’s basic) during their second hour this morning. Or— or he has a concussion! Or Keith sprayed too much of that godawful ocean breeze cologne with a hint of citrus a— yeah that, and now Lance is like one sniff away from his last decaying brain cell. Next thing he knows, Keith is gonna start looking _pretty_ to him. God, wouldn’t that be a nightmare… heh… 

And this doesn’t even seem like the kind of Keith he’s usually around, or has he just not been paying attention? Just… with his hand up to touch Lance’s fingers, and mindlessly hold them as he glazes his thumb over each tip with calm attention. He’s probably jealous of Lance’s expertly cleaned nails or something.

But this whole thing is giving him some weird deja vu. And past his heated cheeks and every nonsensical thought popping up like a useless bunch of overexcited rice krispies, he feels like this is something… It—

It almost seems like something _he_ would do, actually. Especially to Nyma, Allura even, once they’d become tight during Spanish: one of his _easy A_ classes, despite being shoved ahead once the teacher caught his fluent babbling in the hallway. He remembers the creeping grin on his own face that time, both from entertainment and disbelief at one of his ploys being stupidly cracked in front of his equally trouble-making friends.

He also remembers this kind of stuff, playing footsies or more like _pinkies_ with Allura under her subtle, arched-brow gaze. Back then he was _utterly_ convinced she’d totally had a thing for him, now though he’s sure it was just a way to keep Ms. Garcia’s lessons veered away from his otherwise rowdiness in the classroom.

And Keith was _always_ pissy that year — _last_ year— for some reason; had his freakin’ panties and miffed little face in a twist when they’d leave the classroom. He wasn’t sure why Keith even bothered taking Spanish since his language credit was already finished from French. Now that he thinks about it, Keith had somehow jumped to the advanced course too. What, did he just like, take a class so he could torture Lance with that grumpy-cat attitude? Sounds accurate enough.

 _“Geez, what’s your problem, man?”_ he’d said after a particularly snappy remark.

And Keith carried on down the hallway, his nose tipped up. _“Maybe you’d know if you weren’t playing with your little girlfriend.”_

Lance honestly can’t remember that much, just that one thing led to another over the days and Keith, more sour than sweet than ever, landed a low blow in front of passing students during their umpteenth argument. _“If you weren’t such a loudmouth maybe we’d all actually want you on the team,”_ he spat.

And it felt like sheer _betrayal_. He’d done everything for Keith, and for some stupid, mindless reason it ended in a sudden snap like a broken pencil and him shoving Keith to his ass in the gravel where they’d stood outside.

_“Fuck you, Kogane.”_

As tough and careless as he wanted to be known for, his first detention and first fight with someone he felt he shouldn’t even _care_ that much about had hit too close to home. Lance got two week’s worth of detention from Ms. Garcia, and if he wasn’t already crying in the bathroom before their fifth hour everyday since then, he sure as hell had felt like it.

Things are different now, sure, but it aches the same, that memory of huddling himself in the stall and saying over the phone in a hushed, wavering voice— _“Y-yeah the uh, the game is actually cancelled today, Ma. I’ll just take the bus home.”_

And a second too late he’d noticed those black sneakers planted on the other side of the barrier, a sheen of light swiped across the glossy Nike logo and Lance just wanted to burn them with a single glare. Of course, of-freaking-course Keith had to be there, looking at Lance in the reflection when the latter stepped out with a quivering breath.

 _Don’t say anything,_ **_please_ ** _don’t say anything—_

 _“The game’s not cancelled today,”_ Keith had said bluntly, like Lance’s reasoning was the passing storm clouds and semi-damp dirt rather than this boys equally mucky face at the time.

Lance had stuffed his phone back in his pocket before, rinsed his hands while desperately swallowing away his anger the same way the drain chugged down all that extra faucet water.

 _Creeeak_. The water stopped running.

Then, he looked Keith right in those stupid grey eyes with the most pissed-off face he could muster, and said—

 _“Like you’d care if I went,_ **_jackass_ ** _.”_

He vowed to never look Keith’s way unless there was clear despise in it, just to make his teammate understand that dreadful stomach drop feeling from only a stare.

Lance is stubborn.

But not stubborn enough to last over a year, clearly, because his very sworn team rival hasn’t been subjected to any sort of genuine glare for the past ten minutes— _days_ , even, with how weirdly his brain has been malfunctioning lately… 

He wonders what the heck even had to happen for them to end up _here_ of all places, as an unlikely pair of friends to begin with, where venom-spiked remarks in an empty school bathroom had turned into… his eyes not holding even _half_ their amount of old and angsty puddles of resent, even when Keith is gnawing away at his attention just by merely existing.

“Uh, distraction isn’t limited to _talking_ , mister mullet,” Lance says in a parrot to what goes through his mind.

“What am I doing that’s distracting then?” Keith says in the most _clearly_ feigned tone he’s like, ever used before. His bangs have slid back into their rightful arch, framing the curve of his face, shielding light from his eyes and the pair of dots from his piercing that peek between the blinds of certain strands. Lance feels his fingertips twitch against the other’s open palm. Soft, just like in Disneyland.

Lance rolls his eyes just to stall for a little time, what could he even— _Aha!_

“You’re looking too much,” he delivers in a smooth and casual voice. “See, I know my good looks are _irresistible_ and all,“ —he flicks his other wrist and leans closer— “but listen…”

Keith arches his brow.

“Prince Charming needs some time for this study sesh without the _goo-goo_ eyes.” And then he winks. For good measure and for his _own_ sake because apparently being a whole hunk of a flirt at Keith ( _jokingly_ , of course) is way more rattling than pulling these stops with his lady classmates, or the Dunkin’ Donuts worker he smooth talks just for a regular discount on his iced coffee… So what? He’s tight on money, and In-n-Out did the bare minimum for part time employees since he last worked there.

And just like his manager had been when he’d chat up a girl on fry duty for too long, Keith gives him a long, slow blink, and deadpans.

“You’re ridiculous,” he grumbles, the apples of his cheeks flushing nearly red under the fluorescent light. Poor guy probably doesn’t know how to apply sunscreen without Lance’s help, it’s honestly sad at this point. 

“Where’s the fun without that?” Lance pouts as he strings Keith along into sliding their hands palm to palm. He’d do that with Allura too. Her fingers were nimble and almost dainty looking, but _hoooo_ boy could she probably drop kick his sorry butt with a single thrust from all that aggression and arm muscle.

Keith has muscle too. Like, the swell of it is _very much present_ , especially when his poor lobster burn darkens into a reasonable tan and it’s just _wow_. Like it’s right there undulating under the sleeves of his t-shirt and shifting into the thick veins of his forearms, sometimes it’s a little distracting because—

Okay, Gianna totally spiked his water with something. Heh, yeah no way that’s, yeah it’s only “distracting” because Keith’s mullet makes his head still look too big for his body or— or something like that.

“There’s no fun either way,” Keith says lamely, then presses Lance’s fingers back until he flinches from a sudden spike of pain. “Just torture.”

“You take that back you _jerk_ ,” Lance snaps through a harsh whisper. He lunges at Keith, sly as a panther— well, like, a baby panther that’s hardly ever walked before.

Keith chuckles and readily holds Lance away by the grip on his arm, his teeth are bared in a pleasantly wicked smile and the balance he’s got on this chair is nearly admirable if he hadn’t just insulted Lance two seconds ago. “ _Never._ ”

“You’re just—“ Lance struggles, his grabby hands only grappling with the air and not Keith’s stupid freckly cheeks. “—You’re just saying that— because you have— the personality— of a _mall cop_ — _urghhhh._ ”

And Keith actually _giggles_ from that, probably because he’s tossing Lance’s limbs away like a baby on a havoc spree during play time. “I dunno, driving a segway seems kind of nice if you ask me.”

“I’m gonna burn all your pants,” Lance growls through a couple more directionless swats, “and then I’m gonna stick a segway up your—

_Ahh!”_

Lance topples over with a squawk, one wrong twist of the heel and suddenly his balance from the table is knocked into Keith’s lap. He prays to every existing deity that Ms. Chaffer is still on the other side of the library, confusedly checking out the manga section or telling Ricardo he can’t use the bathroom pass just to makeout with his girlfriend behind the building. Anything, _anything_ besides her being right around the corner.

But alas, his luck is… absolute _crap_ , for lack of better words, and the doomed silence that follows Keith’s tapering laugh is all he needs to know before tilting his head back, just to be met with the upside-down sight of his teachers fiery, vibrant red hair and tacky purple glasses.

“I… don’t think that’s what segways are for, Lance,” Ms. Chaffer says with a pursed, albeit amused smile. She’s like a mom, well, not _his_ mom, more like one of the ladies at his old church who could guilt him into behaving with a disappointed look alone.

And oh yeah, he does definitely feel guilty already, and from the way his friend’s throat bobs from a nervous swallow, Keith definitely does too.

“Uh— right,” he says as he scrambles back onto his own seat without a peep of resistance from Keith. “Sorry, Miss Chaffer.”

“Right,” she hums pleasantly, then turns to Keith’s stock-still figure. “Keith, how are you doing today?”

He’s never had Ms. Chaffer before, but Lance has had her _twice_ and it seems that any class Lance is in, Keith may as well be too. Whether by chance of the boy needing a quiet room to make up a test, or Lance’s habit of yapping about him for _very good reasons_. Such as baseball, and his outrageously outdated, totally-ugly-but-kinda-soft hair.

“I’m… good,” Keith says stiffly, but he smiles anyway. “Short schedule this year.”

And however awkward Keith is, Lance still feels an inkling of pride because… the boy doesn’t really know it, but there’s this certain _look_ he gives sometimes with this unintentional, kiddish charm. Lance swears he’s seen a sparkle in those wide pupils before; if this man isn’t a vampire then he’s surely a witch.

“That’s wonderful, but Lance here needs to work on his project and—“

“I’m almost done!” Lance yelps, and hurriedly snatches his chromebook up just to show his document smothered in research with a cluster of tabs open, including the “ _gksjfkdbfkendkdndkdjdfbapdjej_ ” one, which he prays is left unheeded. It’s beyond him how the device is still functioning at this point, but he won’t question it. “There’s only the conclusion paragraph and then I’m finished! Off the hook, no need to worry about me, Miss,” he says with a wave of his hand in the most convincing tone he can muster. “Or the segways…”

Ms. Chaffer glances at the screen, then meets Lance’s desperate gaze once again. And here’s the thing, Keith can get in trouble for all he cares, it’s not like he’s _trying_ to drag Keith out of this or whatever. He’s just saving his own sorry butt, of course… No mushy-gushy coming of age plot where ~friendship~ wins in the end. _Bleh_.

So, completely for his _own_ sake…

“Keith’s my study buddy.” He wraps his arms around the other boy after setting down his chromebook. “My partner in… completely legal activity. The apple of my eye, the reason I passed your class sophomore year,” he says matter of factly. Yeah he totally just copied off all of Keith’s old assignments since he’d taken the same course before. Shortcut to acquaintanceship: Lance gets homework answers, Keith gets one less minute of pestering during practice. A satisfying deal, if you ask him.

Keith even holds onto Lance’s arms, albeit still stiff and all around awkward, he’s seemed to get the message, yeah? Fake it til ya make it, honestly it’s a job well done, Lance would almost think his friend is actually alright with him getting all huggable, going by the veil of supposed fondness washed over his absent expression. So now his teacher has no _choice_ but to admit defeat.

Ms. Chaffer puffs out a laugh, then tucks her clipboard back into its unassuming grip where the papers aren’t hovering just beneath her nose anymore. “I’m sure that’s what the yearbook says.”

And Lance, ever so compliant in such an unsure situation, immediately nods along. “Exactly what the yearbook says!” He even throws in a finger gun too.

That seems to do it, because his teacher gives them one quick glance over, her eyes settling on Keith with a tinge of intrigue before rising back to attention. “Just focus on your work,” she says.

“ _Miss Chaffer, where’s the bathroom pass?_ ” Sofia calls from down the aisle.

Yeahhh… she’s about done here. Lance does his best to hold in his laugh at the idea of Ricardo getting lectured again.

“You two can have your fun later. This weekend, Mister McClain, have that submitted,” she insists pointedly.

He smiles, and nods practically a thousand and one times just to usher himself out of this embarrassing situation. “You got it.”

He peers closely at Ms. Chaffer’s wandering figure, clinging around Keith as he waits until the last step around the corner and his teacher’s matching, vibrant purple heels vanish into the next aisle. For some reason, staying like this, with his arms around Keith, doesn’t seem so bad. One taste at being embraced and suddenly Lance feels himself toeing some koala-like tendencies and hanging on like this boy is nothing but a tree.

A strong, bulky, and nicely structured tree… With warm hands and… hair that smells like pomegranate and—

Trees don’t have hair.

“ _Wellll!_ ” he says with a start and readily flings himself away with the speed of someone outrunning a sudden sneeze. “Glad we got out of that one, right Kogane?”

Keith curls back into himself, just as reserved as before as he tucks some strands of hair away and goes to unlock his phone with a downcast gaze. He chuckles. “So I’m your crush now?”

What the—

Lance feels himself stop. Everything. Stops rocking his chair, tapping the table, jumping his knee to a steady rhythm that matches his whirring excitement (or more like anxiousness) from that close save out of trouble. Keith still scrolls through his phone.

“Huh? Wh— who told you that? Did Hunk say something? I never even—“

“Lance.” Keith says, solid, blunt. He sets his phone aside and gives Lance this… this unreadable expression as he turns his way. “You just told your teacher _‘Exactly what the yearbook says’_. Which by the way,” —he slings his own backpack over the table and unzips it, pulling out none other than the item in question, with a glossy blue and white cover and their lion mascot stamped right in the middle. “Forgot to give this back.”

 _Ohhhhh_. He feels himself mentally facepalm, and now his floundering reaction is starting to make him quite embarrassed. The yearbook, hah. Yeah, just his way of getting them out of a lecture, nothing past that or anything. Just guys bein’ dudes.

“Oh my god,” Lance breathes out as he takes the book into his grasp with one hand and clutching his heart with the other. “Seriously don’t scare me like that, you jerk.”

“What,” Keith says and furrows his brows curiously, “got something to hide, McClain?”

Lance can practically _smell_ the amusement in that inquiry, along with the citrus-hinted, pomegranate shampoo of some sort that just _has_ to work well because his friend’s hair is so… shiny, seamless and curved at the ends. Like what if Lance just happened to twirl his finger around—

“As _if_ ,” he chokes out. “I would vomit. And you know what? First thing I do once I get home is burn those cursed pages in my backyard.”

He actually considers the idea for a moment, wonders if it’s really worth it for the sake of drama and proving a point. Probably not, but it’s not like he’s desperate to hold onto such a thing with vice-like fierceness. He’s honestly kind of contradicting that phone case idea from that day, but who cares? The _design_ was cool, but— but the title?

 _“School crush”_. Pssh, yeah the last thing he could see himself doing is tracing those pages at a late hour, soaking up every detail and particular pictured smile in the glow of his nightlight like some... lovestruck school girl or something.

He still feels his stomach sink a little, though, seeing as Keith’s playful mood has shifted into something else. Something timid, almost like he’s a little disheartened by Lance’s snark and… and maybe it was kind of rude for him to say, but it’s nothing new, right?

“Yeah,” Keith says flatly, then scoops his phone back up. “I don’t doubt it.”

But Lance admittedly does. He doubts himself, so much so it’s concerning and perhaps it’s just in the name of friendship, not wanting to screw up badly enough that he loses one of his best friends— cause that’d suck, obviously.

There’s unspoken words playing at the base of his throat like he’d swallowed a mouthful of restless, emotion-coated pop rocks. They don’t come out, can’t even reach his brain up above so he’s left dealing with this vague feeling of guilt.

In a wordless apology, Lance shifts his chair closer, hooks his ankle with the boy’s beside him as he goes back to studying—

And he doubts himself.

**Author's Note:**

> (Read ahead of time, via instagram)  
> [Chapters 7-8](https://www.instagram.com/arcadevia/guide/team-rival-chapter-7-/17876346572062976/?igshid=vo63traie2tk)  
> Ch. 9 in progress
> 
> Team Rival is posted in parts on my instagram, chapters are only published in full to ao3 once completed. Currently updating here each Wednesday until caught up.


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